


Aziraphale and Crowley: Who is Gooder, What Kind of Good, and Why?

by ThistleBrows



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 15:16:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20117197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThistleBrows/pseuds/ThistleBrows
Summary: META: I kept thinking about how Aziraphale is allegedly just a bit of a bastard, yet how he isn't really ever portrayed as such, otherwise we wouldn't like him. So what is it about the Aziraphale-Crowley dynamic that makes them the good guy bad guy Odd Couple dynamic, if neither of them are actually bad people at all, and moreover, if they're good people, why do we still get the general interpretation that Crowley is the deep down gooder one.





	Aziraphale and Crowley: Who is Gooder, What Kind of Good, and Why?

One line in the show has always bothered me when I think about how it's executed in fandom. It’s one of the very last ones in the show:

“And if you weren’t, deep down, just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing,” said Crowley.

From this line comes the interpretation that Crowley, although he frequently has to maintain that he is capital E “Evil”, is at heart, a good person. And that Aziraphale, at heart, “is a bit of a bastard”.

This always bothered me. Because Aziraphale isn’t a bastard at all. Throwing hissy fits and being a bit sanctimonious and dramatic doesn’t make you a bastard. If he were truly a bastard, fandom wouldn’t like him as much. That’s probably why half the time, people are writing him to be as innocent and fluffy as cream pie, which in turn prompts more fan commentary about how we need to remember that his innocent act is, in fact, an act.

What I think is that they are both good people. And I think we all know that. Aziraphale isn’t a bastard. They are good people in different ways, and to see how exactly it all plays out, we have to talk about three facades going on.

The first facade is the one Crowley and Aziraphale have to put on in front of each other that literally everybody knows is fake. That Crowley is a Big Bad Snake and Aziraphale is a Cherubic Angel TM who can do no wrong. I call this the public facade. The one they show to their bosses and the ones they show to each other in case the bosses are watching. Get thee behind me foul fiend and suchlike.  
The second facade isn’t Crowley and Aziraphale’s. It’s that of Heaven and Hell.

Heaven and Hell are self-purportedly Good and Evil incarnate. We, the viewers, know this is a load of baloney, because we all watched the show. We watched God bring down the Flood, we know Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, and Sandalphon are huge assholes. We also know Lord Beelzebub is the epitome of apathy, like they too don’t give that much of a shit about collecting souls and are just clocking in for the job. Hell is full of sassholes, like Hastur and Ligur, who truly do delight in being evil. But Heaven is also full of assholes who are holier-than-thou and love to point it out. Heaven and Hell are, in actuality, both authoritarian as all hell. And this is the whole reason that Aziraphale and Crowley even have to put on the first facade at all, of course.

In reality, Heaven and Hell have more in common with each other than with humans. People say humans are a blend of good and evil, and thus, are in the middle of some two-ended spectrum. I disagree. It’s more like Heaven and Hell are authoritarian, and humans have free will (that they constantly misuse and abuse, granted). So really, it’s not like a line with heaven and hell on opposite ends with humans in the middle. It’s more like an isosceles triangle, where humans are on the far end, heaven and hell are both equally distant from humans, and they are closer to each other. That is to say, we should stop using the silly Good-Evil meter bar and start using the Free Will-Authoritarian alignment triangle.

Once we interpret the relationship of heaven, hell, and humans like this, it’s a lot easier to see what parts of Crowley and Aziraphale are “good” or “bad” and why. And also that, for Aziraphale, there is a third facade.

But Crowley first. The easy bit. Crowley doesn’t fit in with Hell. Unlike Hastur and Ligur, we know he doesn’t really give a shit about the job or about securing souls for Hell. He’s even more apathetic about the whole thing than Beelzebub. And worse than Beelzebub, he’s not only apathetic about Hell, he’s sympathetic to humans. He’s a huge softie. This is a guy who revived a dove that Aziraphale accidentally suffocated during a magic act. A guy who can’t bear to kill children. So much so that he can’t go about his usual pattern of indulging Aziraphale and doing “the dirty work” for him, and so tells Aziraphale to do the dirty work of shooting Adam. This is also a guy who simply sauntered vaguely downwards. For asking questions.

Which pretty much brings us to the second bit. Since we know that Heaven and Hell are closer to each other than either are to humans, let’s ask why Crowley also didn’t fit into Heaven if he wasn’t much of a Hellfire and brimstone guy. Well. We know he asked questions. And he asked them of everybody. I mean he is the guy whose original sin was to let man know the difference between good and evil, and thus have a choice. That isn’t going to fit in with Heaven either. And, we also know that Crowley is a big softie. If God and angels can unquestioningly drown the people and Crowley can’t bear to see kids die or stop asking why, he’s not going to fit very well in Heaven either. So the guy who asks questions like “why”, is going to throw his lot in with the “free will” humans.

Now Aziraphale, again starting with the easy and obvious bit. Why doesn’t Aziraphale fit into Heaven? Well we know why. For the same reason that Crowley doesn’t fit into Hell: he’s too soft. Aziraphale didn’t like to see the Flood. Aziraphale cares about humanity too much for that. He’s gone native just as much as Crowley has. He loves sushi whereas Gabriel would never sully the celestial temple of his body with gross matter. So if Aziraphale is too soft for Heaven, and Crowley is too soft for Hell, then how come we spend so much time emphasizing how they’re different and not how they’re alike? In general, in fandom, we end up with the relationship dynamic between the two being between a “soft demon pretends at Bad Boy” and one of two things for Aziraphale: “soft guy who is innocent as cream pie” or “soft guy who is secretly a bastard”. Depending on which Aziraphale you go for, you may end up with a different answer to ‘Which one is the softer one in the relationship?’ 

So then we must ask: to what degree is Aziraphale actually a big softie or a bastard? How is he different from Crowley, thus creating The Odd Couple dynamic, if they’re both juxtaposed as being good people when compared against cold authoritarian Heaven and Hell?

Again, we’ve got to throw out the good-evil meter and look at the free will-authoritarian triangle.

As a soldier of the Lord, Aziraphale is built to fight, to kill, and to smite. If there’s a threat, he can strike it down with impunity. When suffering is all around he is meant to close himself off from it and do his duty. To stand by and watch The Flood. Let Armageddon happen. Watch the humans die in the war.  
And we know that to some degree, Aziraphale does toe the party line more than Crowley ever did. After all, Crowley got kicked out for asking questions whereas Aziraphale is always worried about what he ought or ought not do.But it’s not just about making sure he stays in the bosses’ good books. Despite loving humanity, earth, and all the material things humanity has created, things he shouldn’t like, he’s still not as sentimental as Crowley. He accidentally suffocates the dove in his magic act. He lets that French executioner die in his place. And, when it comes down to it, he is willing to straight up murder a child. You can definitely imagine Aziraphale being capable of closing himself off to the suffering of the world to take up his angelic duties. He may not like it, but he could do it.

This is in contrast to Crowley. Even for the sake of his image or for Aziraphale, Crowley couldn’t bring himself to kill Adam. Normally, as Aziraphale said, Crowley does the dirty work. We know Crowley’s not actually a bad guy, but he’s doing the dirty work for Aziraphale apparently. Not just to keep up his demonic image, but to help Aziraphale keep his hands clean. He really cares about Aziraphale. And yet, despite that, he could not kill a child for Aziraphale. As he tempts Aziraphale into killing a kid by asking ‘wouldn’t you do it to save everything?’ and also implicitly asking ‘to save me? to save Us?’, he simultaneously distances himself from killing the boy. He couldn’t do it to save everything, Aziraphale, Them. Clearly then, Aziraphale is not as intrinsically caring and compassionate as Crowley, even if he is a nice person.

So this is how they are different. This is how Aziraphale is apparently a bit of a bastard, though I hardly call this bastardry. But I think this is what people mean when they refer to Aziraphale’s bastardry. They mean he’s a little less radical. Doesn’t ask as many questions. A little more authoritarian.

So if Aziraphale isn’t on the same level as Crowley in terms of goodness, how is Aziraphale a good person then? What kind of good are we talking about here.

Choice. He’s good because he chooses to be. Who he wants to be. Crowley is a good person who has to fight against the role of Evil that’s been thrust upon him. For Aziraphale, It’s not just Heaven pushing the role of cold warrior upon him, it’s also the side of Aziraphale who knows he could roll with the party line, who wouldn’t mind it so much. The side of a man that can probably deeply feel or even sense the love and suffering of humans around him, and thus is even more sensitive than Crowley, but can still push that down somewhere else so he can get his job done. For Aziraphale, it’s not just man vs society, it’s man vs himself.

This is where the third facade comes in. Where interpretations of Aziraphale and his facade differ. His facade is that of a harmless, innocent goody two shoes. He’s always feigning being oh so horribly shocked about bad behavior. You’d think he’d never seen two people have sex from the way he’d probably balk at seeing the act. The way he reacts to being threatened, like in 1793 France, as if he’s just oh so caught off guard. Same as in 1941.

There are so fans who really would have him shocked at the sight of bad behavior. Other fans who say he’s only acting shocked. And those who go further and say, deep down, he really would like to be participating in some of that bad behavior. Even further, are the fans who want to remind us all that Aziraphale is anything but harmless. There’s a lot of variance in how much of the facade is a facade. I’d say some of it is simultaneously true and fake.

To some degree, it really is a facade because Aziraphale can’t change his nature. He truly is a warrior and potentially extremely dangerous to be around. But I think that, feigning harmlessness aside, the innocent goody-two shoes act is a double facade. It’s not just what he uses to show people he’s toeing the party line (and to come off nonthreatening to humans). It’s what he uses in order to indulge himself in the choice of being good. Aziraphale doesn’t want to be the cold soldier of God. That’s his free will choice. To be soft. Comfortable. To wear comfy worn out clothes instead of modern bespoke suits like a certain asshole boss.

When Aziraphale helps out some poor humans, he can say he’s being a Good Person, when secretly he’s indulging in his softer nature and being a good person. This is why his innocent goody two shoes facade is a facade yet is also simultaneously sincere. The emotional good person in him must feign being a Good Person. The Soldier of God in him wants to feign being a good person, to “fake-it-til-you-make-it”. To go against, not just his duty but his own personality. A personality that could align with his duty if he let it.

That’s the difference between his good and Crowley’s good. Crowley’s is good through and through. He can hide it behind mischief and rudness, but he is. Aziraphale is good because he chose to favor that side of his personality. If Crowley is a proponent of free will because he asks questions by challenging God and the Great Plan, then Aziraphale makes use of said free will to choose to be good when he know he could easily Just Follow Orders like a good soldier, fit into that heavenly mould, and reassure himself that he’s a Good Person TM. Crowley has the big picture on free will, spreading it amongst the humans, letting them even have choice at all, and whispering it questioningly into Aziraphale’s ear. Aziraphale doesn’t spread the idea of free will around, but he exercises it on a personal level.

This all, in turn, begs the question: why does our principality choose to be a good person instead of falling in line and be a Good Person? Because it’s the morally right thing to do? Is he standing on -hehe- principle? Or is it because he loves humanity (and sushi)? Well. Aziraphale loves sushi and he loves humanity, but that’s not enough. Those arguments weren’t enough in episode 1 when Crowley made them. Crowley only got him to shake hands because of his clever “it would be foiling the plans of Hell if you worked with me” excuse. What convinces him to defy his duty is Crowley. Obviously in the literal sense that Crowley is the one who came up with the idea and talked him into it and also later ordered him to shoot the Antichrist. But also because. What would earth be without his best friend? We know that’s what Aziraphale really cares about. We see it when Aziraphale performs a frivolous miracle to swap his clothes with that Frenchman in ep 3, thus simultaneously defying heaven’s orders and condemning a human to death just so that he can go out to lunch and eat crepes with his best friend. That’s what he truly cares about.

Arguably then, Aziraphale is a person who does good things for the “wrong” reasons, whether those reasons are “Heaven told me to do my job” or “I just really love this one particular demon and want to eat crepes”. Whereas Crowley does good things for the right reasons, namely, stopping Armageddon, not just because he loves one (1) principality, but because blindly obeying authoritative figures without question and killing everybody, children included, is just wrong.

Ultimately then, the difference between the two is that Aziraphale’s motivations are more selfish than Crowley’s. He chooses to ignore his own more authoritarian leanings for the selfish reason that he loves Crowley and wants to continue living on earth with him.

This explanation is how I resolve the conflict of interpretations fans have and the explanation for why fans generally interpret Crowley as being the gooder softie of the two, whilst still simultaneously falling for Aziraphale’s sincere/insincere good person/Good Person act and reminding us sporadically that he is a Soldier of God. The difference is in their alignment to authoritarianism, and why they are good, aka, what they care about.

TLDR: There are three facades in the show, and once we break them down we understand what kind of people Azirahale and Crowley are. The first facade is Crowley pretending to be Evil and Aziraphale pretending to be Good. The second facade is that Heaven and Hell are Good and Evil. Rather, both are authoritarian and are closer to each other than either is to humanity. In fact, relationships between things in this show should be measured not by the Good and Evil that is constantly cited, but by Free Will vs authoritarianism. The third facade is that of Aziraphale and his personality. He is more suited to authoritarianism than Crowley but he uses the facade of following the rules and being a Good Person as another facade for also genuinely wanting and choosing to be a good person. Aziraphale chose to be good, love and defend humanity, because of his love for a particular demon. But for this demon, Aziraphale would also throw out moral principle and murder a child. So he would do the right or wrong thing for Crowley. And if Crowley had never been around, maybe Aziraphale would still be doing the Right TM thing. Thus, Aziraphale’s reasons for using free will and choosing goodness are ultimately of selfish love for an individual. This is an exercise in free will at the individual level. In contrast, Crowley advocates against child murder and for free will for all on principle and in general, has more compassionate, not-impersonal/abstract love for individuals beyond just his angel..


End file.
